Friday, October 31, 2014

Hello darlings! It's almost time to say good bye to October and hello to November. I'm honestly sad, I love October and am sooo not ready for cold weather. We had such a mild-mannered October that I don't want to see it go.

It's also the final week in the challenge, which, I gotta say, is not something I am sad to see go. Though it is not the challenge's fault, but my own health. *shakes fist at immune system* These past couple weeks have been extremely hard to pull off, but I have done it!!!

This final week's theme is:

This mani very nearly did not happen due to bad planning, bad timing, and a bad immune system. I did not know tonight was Beggar's Night (what they call "trick-or-treating" 'round these parts), and also I spent the afternoon with my friend and her daughter and my kiddo in the Big City. I am currently expecting a food baby, due in a couple of hours (thank you, my darling Huhot!), and on top of everything, I'm not sleeping well. So yeah this was really difficult to pull off.

The original plan for this week was supposed to be recreating this mani. After two days of contemplating exactly how I'm going to pull it off, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I'm too tired.

So I decided to do my favorite one of that mani's monsters: The zombie!

Besides the fact that none of them have noses, I like these ugly guys. They each have a distinct personality and creepiness.

I used 7 shades of green blotched on with a fatter round brush, a couple of shades of brown, and red to make these guys. Pearls with black polish and red polish for the eyes.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Second post in a week? Am I sick?! Why, yes I am... But fear not, I seriously have a real post for you today!

So I recently joined a group on Facebook called Hobby Polish Bloggers. HBP is a fun and informative group of lovely ladies who are always there to give feedback, helpful tips, and answer questions. I'm so thankful to have found this group, and they've helped me so much! One of the fun things they do is a monthly mani linkup, and this month's theme is hardly surprising: Halloween!

My bestie, Whitney, is in looove with Nightmare Before Christmas. So I decided to a mani for her (I will also probably do this mani on her)! I found this pin, and decided to do something a little different.

This is what came of it:

What a happy Jack!

So happy!

Uh-oh. Someone pissed him off...

I'm pretty pleased with the way these turned out. I'm not in love with the ring finger, but everything else? Ooooooh yeeeeeah. LOOK AT THOSE JACKS, I AM SO FRIGGIN' PROUD OF THEM!!

To create this, I used two brushes, five polishes, and a some red striping tape. For the polishes, I used Sinful Colors' Tempest, Enchanted, and Black on Black, Sally Hansen's White On, and Pure Ice's Kiss Me Here. I topped with glow-in-the-dark and NYC's Turbo Dry Topcoat. I was planning on doing the stripes using striping tape, but after struggling with the tape on my ring finger, I decided to do it by hand. No regrets.

To explain what a linkup is, basically down below there's going to be some links and previews of other bloggers' manis, as well as mine. You can click the links to view the others' posts! Fun, right?

As always, please subscribe off to the right, share, and feel free to leave a comment!

Phew, it's been a long week! Hope yours went by better (and faster!) than mine! Both kiddo and I have been sick, which means 10-hour shifts on little to no sleep, AND my favorite cuticle nippers broke :(

But never fear, nothing like a little stomach bug and some insomnia will keep me from painting my nails! I have a challenge to complete!!

...And a challenge this week's theme has been, too! This week, I created something inspired by:

After a week of searching and trying to come up with ideas, I finally decided on this one. Using the tutorial over at The Nailasaurus, I wanted to create a foggy, misty look. For the accent nail, I didn't want to create a bedsheet-ghost, I wanted to create something kinda realistic and creepy so I decided to do a humanoid-ish ghost.

The things that look like glitter are from the glow-in-the-dark paint I used to give her a glowing aura. Looks pretty cool in the dark, but my camera simply can't capture it, and I cannot find a blacklight for the life of me.

It took me several tries to be happy with the colors for the Nimbus nails. I kept trying to throw black in there and it just wasn't working. Finally, I decided to dump the black and hoo-boy am I glad I did.

The colors I ended up using were Sally Hansen's White-On, LAC's Lost Soul (appropriate, right?), Sinful Colors' Tokyo Pearl, and Pure Ice's Kiss Me Here. I watered them down with acetone and then used regular cotton swabs. To blot, I took my cleanup brush and mixed White-On with acetone and brushed it on in 1-2 strokes per nail, keeping it as thin as I could.

For the ghost girl, I just used White-On, Lost Soul, and Kiss Me Here, layering them on top of one another with my striping brush until I had her. I'm pretty thrilled with how she turned out!!

Next week: Monsters! There's a good chance I'm planning something big with that one... dunno ;)

Next time we see each other, it'll be time to Trick-Or-Treat! Have you gotten everything ready? What are you going to dress up as? As always, please subscribe off to the right in the Google Friend Connect widget, and leave your feedback in the comments :) Happy Halloween!

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Hello lovelies! This week you're getting TWO blog posts!! How awesome is that? Today's post is Week Three of the October Challenge! This week's theme is:

I realized after I did Week 1 that I'd already used spider webs, and felt like a dolt. But I've been wanting to do a mani like this for forever, so I just went with it.

Turns out I had some bad karma or something going when I was doing this, because NOTHING was working with me. It was a very frustrating mani :( I had intended on having newspaper print going, the webs were supposed to be black glitter, and the spider on my thumbs were supposed to be stamped. But I couldn't find my spider stamping plate, my bundle monster binder for my plates broke (still usable), my rubbing alcohol is missing, and neither vodka nor water worked for the newspaper transfers, and the black glitter I have bleeds into the topcoat. Oh, and I tried to freehand a spider with no reference. My first attempt looked like a tick. ...You very nearly didn't get a Week 3.

But I persevered and I survived, and I've already gotten a few comments on them!

They glow in the dark! But my camera can't capture it and it is impossible to find a black light smaller than 2' in this teeny tiny town.

Ooooh spoooooky misty green!

Holy crap I didn't see how many stringies I have :(

For this mani I laid down a layer or two of Rue Beaute's Mint, and then dabbed on China Glaze's I'm With The Lifeguard, Finger Paints' Silkscreen Green, Sally Hansen's Limestone, and LAC's Limelife using a makeup sponge and some foam I cut up from some kind of packaging. I then did a thick layer of Seche Vite, because I just KNEW I was gonna mess up. Holy moly am I soooo very glad for that forethought! This is when things went... downhill. I'll spare you the gory details. I freehanded the spiders and the webs using a thinned Sinful Colors' Black on Black and a medium-length striping brush. Previously my arch-nemesis, it has become my favorite brush. Topped with a final coat of seche and I went to bed.

I really wish the newspaper transfer had worked out, but I'm still pretty satisfied with this mani. And I know it's messy, but I am damn proud of my spiders (not pictured, but the one on my left hand is actually much smaller).

Today, I have a couple of samples from a new indie called Dragon Claw Polish!! I was thrilled to receive such beauties, and excited to get to swatch and review them! The store is debuting on November 7th, so mark your calenders, loves! Pricing is going to be awesome too, with minis at $3.95 and full sized bottles at $7.95!

The polishes I received are Bea and Dragon Fly Wings. I also received a sample of her topcoat, Diamond Claw, which is what I used the pictures below.

First up is Bea. Janet (the creator) says: "Bea comes from the Girls of Famous Asian collection. She is a friendly, always happy person, and whenever I work with her she gives off a calming, friendly vibe. This polish is a bright celadon blue shimmer polish with chunks of friendly glitter!"

Right you are, Janet!

I used four coats

I found Bea to be a very jelly formula, needing about 3-4 coats as it is very sheer. I had a bit of an issue with the glitter settling to the bottom, so I was having a hard time picking the larger hexes. The color is a gorgeous, easy-to-wear blue, and it's very shimmery, to the point that it was distracting (which I love!). There's tiny holo glitters in there, and then all shapes and sizes of blue, purple, green, and red glitters. It dried VERY quickly, even for layers 3 and 4. I was honestly surprised how fast this dried, because as soon as I was done with one hand, the other was ready to go! I love it!

The next polish I received is Dragon Fly Wings. This one was the office favorite (I opened them up at work) and it reminds me of my mother, whose favorite animal is the dragonfly.

Janet's description of this polish is "Dragon Fly Wings is from the Icky Made Pretty collection. Dragonflies are beautiful and their wings glistening in the sun is gorgeous. This polish is a wonderful teal with a color changing shimmer. It shifts from gold to green."

Dragon Fly Wings also has a jelly-like base, but it wasn't quite as sheer; I only needed 2 coats to get it opaque, but I should've gone for one more (I could still see my smile line). I found it to be more of a glass fleck glitter instead of a shimmer as the description says, but it definitely has a lovely spectrum of colors in the glass flecks. I caught myself staring at the shift several times throughout the day, and found some really pretty colors if I tilted my hand just-so. But alas, I was at work and I'm not allowed to be taking pictures there lol. It also had a massively small amount of drying time, which was very pleasing and impressive!

Of the two, Dragon Fly Wings was definitely my favorite, but I just tend to go towards this type of polish vs large glitters. Both of them were awesome to work with and easy to get on the nail. I didn't have any issues with streaking and they were both very good at leveling. Other than the issue with Bea's larger glitters (which, let's face it, is gonna happen with any and all large glitters), I am very happy with both of these polishes and I'm excited to see what I end up using them for :)

Now I know you're worried about the challenge post and wondering why I'm posting Thursday morning instead of Friday morning, but don't worry, you're getting two posts this week! Yaaaay! So you don't miss it, be sure to follow me using your preferred method :)

If you want to check out more of the new Dragon Claw Polishes, check out her site here. I know I'm excited for more and I'm sure you will be, too!

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Hello lovelies! I hope you're enjoying your October, I know I am! Halloween is my favorite time of year. Lovely weather, pumpkins, lovely trees, and piles of leaves! I love how the air smells and the birds sound. October is my favorite month! And I'm keeping on with the challenge, so here's week two!

Inspired by this pin, which takes you to a slideshow of nails (all of which have no sourcing). I tried finding the original source, but after 10 minutes I can't find anything outside of more pins or unsourced lists. :(

I tried and I tried, but I can't catch the orange lines on my middle fingers.

No one's sent me anything to post for week one. I'm hoping I'll get some submissions for week two!

Friday, October 3, 2014

Good morning! Sorry this is a wee bit late, I have some company. In this week's challenge, I'm doing "nude." And I decided to keep it simple and go for a purple gradient French tip. Which felt too simple, so I added some webs, just 'cause I need the practice and also because they're totes adorbs (sorry. I don't know what happened there).

I am very proud of what my left hand achieved on those spiderwebs.

Please ignore my pinkie nubbins. I lost them both on the same day after weeks of superglue and coffee filters.It was very sad.

For the gradient, I used NYC's Strawberry Cream, Sally Hansen's Pronto Purple.Strawberry Cream is a lovely translucent soft pink, with barely a hint of shimmer. It's absolutely perfect for this type of nude gradient.

For the spiderwebs, I used Revlon's Spirit and Kleancolor's Metallic Fuchsia and a medium-length line brush. All fairly simple, really :)

I topped this with a mix of Seche Vite (which has already caused some shrinking, booo) and Pure Ice's Glow In The Dark.

I can't wait to see what you guys come up with for the challenges! You can email me your submissions at pinkies4apenny@gmail.com if you don't have your own blog, and you can always post to instagram, twitter, tumblr, or any other social media using the hashtag #OctoberChallengeP4AP. Hope to wake up to some gorgeous nails :)

Thursday, October 2, 2014

I've decided to do my first challenge! And since I couldn't find any that I like, or that work with my schedule, I decided to make my own!

Please join me this week in a challenge! Don't have a blog of your own? Email it to me and I'll make a post involving everyone! Also post on twitter, tumblr and/or pinterest! My first post is tonight, and I can't wait to see yours!